Country's Legal Research Articles

Gender Imbalance in New Zealand's Senior Legal Positions

Despite New Zealand's real progress toward gender equality over the past century, women remain under-represented in the country's senior legal positions. Disparities between men and women are not unique to the legal profession. They are particularly problematic, however, given that the law aims to pursue justice, and equal opportunity should be its paramount concern. This article examines some of the obstacles and constraints women face in attaining leadership roles in the New Zealand legal profession. Preliminary solutions to remedy these obstacles and constraints are proposed, including a necessary recognition that many female professionals offer distinct experiences and have different needs to their male counterparts.

Environmental Regulation of Upstream Sector of Oil and Gas Industry

The extraction of hydrocarbons is an inherently hazardous activity with potential grave risks to the general environment. Environmental woes occur during all the stages of oil and gas cycle but more notable during the upstream stage of operations. The upstream stage involves exploration, appraisals and production. This stage is accompanied by a range of environmental issues like accidental spills and blow out during development stage, operational discharge and atmospheric emissions like gas flaring during production stage. Major incidents like Ecuador rain forest pollution, Piper alpha offshore disaster (1988), gas flaring in Nigeria, Montara accident (2009) and macondo blowout (2010) are but a few examples. This paper evaluates different approaches employed by governments to minimise the risk of upstream operations on the environment. The evaluation will also show how these approaches work and criticisms levied and offer an opinion on what the writer considers the best approach. It is the author's hypothesis that a combination or two or more approaches could be the best option depending on the host country's legal framework.

Rise and fall of apartheid: photography and the bureaucracy of everyday life

Photographers played an important role in the documentation of apartheid as they stepped in to capture how the system penetrated even the most mundane aspects of life in South Africa, from housing, public amenities, and transportation to education, tourism, religion, and businesses. Included in this vivid and compelling volume are works by such photographers as Eli Weinberg, Alf Khumalo, David Goldblatt, Peter Magubane, Ian Berry, and many others. Organized chronologically, it interweaves images and thoughtful essays to explore vital issues, including the institutionalization of apartheid through the country's legal apparatus; the growing resistance in the 1950s; and the radicalization of the anti-apartheid movement within South Africa and, later, throughout the world. Finally, the book investigates the fall of apartheid, including Mandela's return from exile. Far-reaching and exhaustively researched, this important book features more than 60 years of powerful photographic material that forms part of the historical record of South Africa.

Differentiated effects of formal and informal institutional distance between countries on the environmental performance of multinational enterprises

This research examines the influence of environmental institutional distance between home and host countries on the standardization of environmental performance among multinational enterprises using ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression techniques and a sample of 128 multinationals from high-polluting industries. The paper examines the environmental institutional distance of countries using the concepts of formal and informal institutional distances. The results show that whereas a high formal environmental distance between home and host countries leads multinational enterprises to achieve a different level of environmental performance according to each country's legal requirements, a high informal environmental distance encourages these firms to unify their environmental performance independently of the countries in which their units are based. The study also discusses the implications for academia, managers, and policy makers.

The Justiciability of Socio-Economic Rights in Botswana

AbstractThe judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights remains a challenge in many countries. This is generally attributable to the inadequacy of a particular country's legal framework, in particular its constitutional framework. Given the importance of judicial remedies in litigation, in particular public interest litigation, this article considers possibilities for the judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights in Botswana. It discusses the institutional, legal and constitutional framework for the promotion, protection and fulfilment of socio-economic rights in the country. It also tackles the issue of whether the judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights is easily achievable when those rights are not constitutionally entrenched. The article also considers whether the absence of directive principles of state policy within Botswana's Constitution is a hindrance to the judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights in Botswana. Within that context, it highlights the possible means of judicial enforcement of socio-economic rights in Botswana.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Rule of Law Constructs, 1850–2010

AbstractThis article outlines an effort to gauge cross-national and intertemporal differences in law-based orders for 165 nations from 1850 to 2010. Despite the increasing importance attributed to “the rule of law,” there have been few efforts to develop objective measures of it. The conceptual foundations for this effort rest on a review of centuries of scholarship concerning the societal utility of law. Data are drawn from a variety of sources to create two composite measures. The derivation of these measures is reported and the measures are examined to determine whether they present reinforcing profiles of a country's legal order.

Comparative Analysis of Austria‘s and Lithuania’s Self-Government System

Today, in terms of policy as a fundamental phenomenon, often associate with the concept of bureaucracy in two definitions good and bad. Austria's government structure has some unique features, which is important to analyze, given the fact that the Republic of Lithuania in this field must learn. One of the most important principles in Austria is social partnership, which is accompanied by a democratic political factors and a long history of development. The Republic of Austria joined in the EU since 1995 (Lithuania – in 2004), so the experience and practice of this country is an example for other in local government system is appropriate and purposeful. The Government in the Republic of Lithuania wants to improve the management of the institutional capacity, to manage effectively budget funds, to improve public services for citizens. It is true that the government does not always succeed in achieving those objectives, which are named in the Government program and strategic direction setting of development of Lithuanian documents. Perhaps the most important reason – undemocratic states and the public in the past. Today's fundamental consequence of the Republic of Austria is extremely stable polar state. They noticed a number of political changes in countries that are now gaining political experience. To assess the stability of the Republic of Austria with local political context, it is important to review the country's legal framework, practical application of the active participation of citizens and local institutions. The main Austrian political system of local government in respect of properties are summarized and analyzed in this article.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.11.3.2502

Project finance loan spreads and disaggregated political risk

This article provides novel evidence on project finance loan pricing using economic and disaggregated political risk determinants. As expected, our findings suggest that the presence of loan guarantees and lower levels of aggregate political risk results in cheaper project finance loans. The evidence in support of disaggregated political risk as a pricing determinant is negligible for developed countries, but significant for developing countries. For the latter we find that loan spreads are negatively related to the effectiveness, quality and strength of a country's legal and institutional systems whilst lower levels of government stability and democratic accountability are associated with lower loan spreads. Our results are consistent with a risk allocation approach to project finance deals.

Are exogenous requirements sufficient to induce corporate risk management activities?

This article reports the current practices of risk management in Slovenian companies and relates the incentives for risk management in the country's post-transitional legal and business environment to the neoclassical theoretical motives for risk management. We find that in such an environment, which more or less characterises most Eastern European countries, neoclassical theoretical motives do not provide sufficient (endogenous) incentives for shareholders and managers to manage risk within their firms. We argue that the compulsory use of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) disclosure requirements induces managers to actively analyse and manage risks. We see this exogenous push as a necessary but unfortunately not a sufficient mechanism to induce managers to manage risk within their firms since managers perceive the reporting requirements primarily as cost-enhancing. We argue that, in order to endogenise the incentives, governments need to create market conditions in which managers will also see the added value of risk management. This will require predominantly a change in corporate governance mechanisms.

Binational Unions: New Hope for Guest Workers

Agricultural guest workers have organized in recent years, but building viable unions to represent guest workers is challenging. To effectively represent guest workers, a union must address problems throughout the work cycle in both home and host countries. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) is one union that has organized guest-worker units in recent years. FLOC is experimenting with outreach, education, and representation activities in Mexico, the home country for members of their guest-worker bargaining unit. To be successful, FLOC and other guest-worker unions must use the advantages available in each country's legal and political regimes to advance the interests of its members. In Mexico, legal requirements for an employment relationship and restrictions on foreign union officials might stand in the way of union recognition. Neither is insuperable in principle, but they point to the legal and political minefield into which a guest-worker union might fall. Nevertheless, experiments aimed at developing new transnational forms and tools is a worthwhile venture because purely domestic forms of organization will not adequately serve workers in a world where both labor and capital cross borders.

El desempeño medioambiental en empresas multinacionales: Influencia de la distancia institucional entre países

In this paper we analyze the influence that the environmental institutional distance between countries has on the degree of environmental performance's similarity within the multinational enterprise (MNE). We break down the institutional distance between the host and the home country into distances in relation to the regulatory, cognitive, and normative dimensions of institutions. Building upon the institutional approach, we show that not all the national institutional dimensions have the same influence on the environmental performance's similarity within MNES. Whereas a high regulatory distance between countries leads MNEs’ units to have a different environmental performance according to each country's legal requirements, the cognitive and normative distances encourage these firms to standardize their environmental performance, independent of the countries where their units are based.

National Legislation for Prosecution of International Crimes in Kenya

The rapid development of international criminal law and the demand to put an end to the culture of impunity has led to an increase in the prosecution of international crimes. In recent times, while prosecutions have often been carried out by ad hoc tribunals, special courts and the International Criminal Court, some countries have carried out prosecutions through their national courts. In the latter case, the successful prosecution of international crimes will depend on the country's legal framework and judicial capacity to handle such prosecutions. Kenya is a country that is currently grappling with accusations of international crimes, following the alleged offences committed during the violence that followed the 2007 election. This article discusses the Kenyan criminal justice system against the background of implementation of international criminal law in domestic courts, and assesses Kenya's ability to deal with these allegations.

Artisanal and small-scale mining as an extralegal economy: De Soto and the redefinition of “formalization”

This paper addresses the role of formalization in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing specifically on Uganda. Most ASM activity occurs outside mainstream legal economies, occupying a hazy world of informal, yet essential, economic activity. There is an emerging consensus that formalization must be part of any strategy to develop the ASM sector. However, the meaning of formalization is not always clear; nor how formalization contributes to economic development. While formalization can be defined in a number of ways, it is argued here that formalizing ASM should be understood in the context of Hernando De Soto's theory of “extralegality”. In this framework, formalization is the means of absorbing existing customary practices—developed informally by miners—into the mainstream of a country's legal and economic affairs. This concept of formalization is applied to the case of Uganda, where, despite official formalization policies on the books, ASM continues to operate outside the formal economy. It is argued that to make formalization work, miners must also be “capitalized” in ways that permit them to move from transient artisanal mining, to more sustainable small- and medium-scale mining. International development organizations can help to facilitate the transition of ASM from an extralegal to a legal economy by creating revolving loan funds, and helping to carry the risk of lending money to miners.

Data Suggest Treatment Reduces Homicides Linked to Mental Illness

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessData Suggest Treatment Reduces Homicides Linked to Mental IllnessJoan Arehart-TreichelJoan Arehart-TreichelSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:17 Oct 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.43.20.0009Ever since Jack the Ripper terrorized young women in Victorian London, murders in England have captured the imagination of the public.Yet good statistics on the annual prevalence rate of murders in England and Wales were not readily available before 1957. After that, they indicate that the annual prevalence rate of murders in England and Wales has risen until, by 2000, there were more than 1.5 homicide convictions per 100,000 population.In contrast, the annual prevalence rate of murders by people with mental illness in England and Wales rose steadily from 1957 until the mid-1970s, but then declined.These findings on homicide trends were published in the August British Journal of Psychiatry.Have such trends also been documented in other countries? Apparently not to any great extent. The lead researcher of this study, Matthew Large, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice in Sydney, Australia, told Psychiatric News, “There are no Australian data—hence my examination of United Kingdom data. There are also no United States data that I can find. There may well be some unpublished data from northern Europe, but I have not been able to access it.”Just because such data aren't available, of course, doesn't rule out the possibility that homicides by people with mental illness have also been declining in countries other than England and Wales. And if there is a general international trend in this direction, what could be the explanation? Essentially that “treatment [of the seriously mentally ill] prevents homicide,” Large said.In fact, a study headed by one of Large's collaborators, Jenny Shaw, Ph.D., and published in the November 2006 Psychiatric Services, suggests the same conclusion. Shaw and her colleagues found that of the 1,594 individuals convicted of homicide in England and Wales between 1996 and 1999, 85 (5 percent) had schizophrenia, and that out of these 85, only 43 (51 percent) had received any treatment for their illness during the year preceding their commission of murder.Large and colleagues also conducted a study on this subject in New South Wales, Australia, he said, and there, too, they found that “most homicide offenders with psychosis had not been treated.” Those findings appeared in the May 2007 Medical Journal of Australia.Of course, making sure that people with serious mental illness receive treatment can be a tall order in any country, Large admitted. However, meeting that challenge can be either impeded or eased by a country's legal requirements, he pointed out. For example, under Australian law, as under the law in many American states, treatment cannot be forced on seriously mentally ill people unless they are shown to be dangerous. This requirement“ makes no sense at all,” he said, since “predictions of dangerousness are very inaccurate, and prediction of homicide is not possible.” Yet the United Kingdom, in contrast, has no such legal requirement for proof of potential dangerousness, he said.The study had no outside funding.An abstract of “Homicide Due to Mental Disorder in England and Wales Over 50 Years” is posted at<http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/193/2/130>.▪ ISSUES NewArchived

COSTLY EXTERNAL FINANCE AND INVESTMENT EFFICIENCY IN A MARKET EQUILIBRIUM MODEL

I. INTRODUCTION A large body of research has stressed the quality of a country's financial markets as an important determinant of the firms' real investments and of economic development and growth. (1) But how exactly is investment affected by financial market imperfections? A key result in the corporate finance literature says that a financially constrained firm invests less than an identical unconstrained firm and that the more financially constrained the firm is the less it invests; see, for example, Kaplan and Zingales (1997), Hubbard (1998), and Stein (2003). It seems natural to conclude from this that when external finance is associated with a deadweight cost, firms invest less than when markets are frictionless. (2) This article shows that in assessing how financing frictions distort investment, one needs to distinguish whether the external cost is idiosyncratic to a given firm or whether it affects the whole economy. In particular, the frequently used case of an otherwise identical unconstrained firm is not the appropriate first-best benchmark when the external cost affects all firms in the economy, as, for example, when it reflects the country's legal and financial institutions, its bankruptcy procedures, protection of minority shareholders, stock market regulations regarding the disclosure of information, and so on. Such common factors have market-wide effects, so the appropriate first-best benchmark is the investment level that would be chosen by the firm in an economy with perfect capital markets. It is shown here that economy-wide financial frictions can easily lead firms to invest more than under frictionless markets. Similarly, unlike in the case of idiosyncratic external costs, a higher common external cost can lead to greater levels of investment by individual firms. The argument is as follows. Suppose that new firms can be established as long as they can find enough internal or external funds to finance their operations. To make things simple, assume also that all firms in the economy are identical, so that in equilibrium, each firm earns zero expected profit. Then, if a deadweight cost is introduced into external finance, the equilibrium interest rates must fall to allow the firms to break even--otherwise, no firm would be willing to raise external finance. The decrease in the equilibrium rate of return tends to decrease the firms' marginal costs of investment, which works against the direct effect of the higher external cost. I provide simple necessary and sufficient conditions under which this indirect, market equilibrium effect prevails, so that costly external finance leads each firm to overinvest, that is, to invest more than it would in a frictionless economy. More specifically, I show the following: * When all firms are identical, then each firm overinvests if at the first-best level of investment the marginal external cost is smaller than the average external cost. Each firm underinvests if the reverse is true. * Less productive firms are more likely to overinvest than more productive firms. By the same token, more productive firms are more likely to underinvest. * Cash-rich firms and firms with relatively cheap external capital have a greater tendency to overinvest, while cash-poor firms and firms with relatively costly external capital have a greater tendency to underinvest. * Firms with free cash always overinvest compared to the first-best level. Thus, free cash causes overinvestment in the present model as in Jensen (1986), although for a different reason. * An increase in the cost of external finance can make some firms better off and also improve efficiency. All the above results hold whether the economy is closed or open to capital flows. These results suggest that while the level of capital market frictions is an important determinant of the firms' investments, so is the composition of the costs associated with these frictions. …

Risk perception and the financial system

I examine how a country's financial system influences assessments of firm-level risk. Consistent with theories of financial intermediation, I find that firms located in a country with a bank-oriented financial system are perceived as posing a lower credit risk and correspondingly are assigned higher credit ratings than otherwise similar firms in a market-oriented setting. Even after considering elements of a country's legal infrastructure that relate to creditor protection and insolvency proceedings, the financial system remains an important determinant of credit-rating assignment. The results are robust to the inclusion of several firm-level controls, including financial performance, industry, ownership concentration, political connections, and the ease with which the firm's assets can be monitored.

Siting the Death Penalty Internationally

We examine sources of variation in possession and use of the death penalty using data drawn from 193 nations in order to test theories of punishment. We find the death penalty to be rooted in a country's legal and political systems, and to be influenced by its religious traditions. A country's level of economic development, its educational attainment, and its religious composition shape its political institutions and practices, indirectly affecting its use of the death penalty. The article concludes by discussing likely future trends.

Sugarcane energy use: The Cuban case

Abstract This paper examines the history, methods, costs, and future prospects of Cuba's attempts to develop the energy potential of sugarcane. An overview of the main factors affecting the current sugarcane agro-industry in Cuba is provided, along with an analysis of why, despite attempts by the Cuban government to revive the country's sugarcane agro-industry, the industry continues to decline. The prevailing conditions and degree of modernization in Cuban sugar factories are evaluated. The sugar-agro industry's main production bottlenecks are studied. The fall in sugarcane yield from 57.5 ton/ha in 1991 to 22.4 ton/ha in 2005 and its relation to land use is explained. The socio-economic impact of the sugarcane agro-industry's downsizing is assessed. The governmental and quasi-governmental entities in charge of sugarcane energy use development and the country's legal framework are analyzed. The Cuban sugarcane agro-industry's opportunities in the growing international biofuels and bioenergy market are evaluated. To situate Cuba within the global bioenergy market, international best practices relating to the production and commercialization of biofuels are examined to determine the degree to which these experiences can be transferred to Cuba. The analysis of the Cuba sugar industry's biofuel potential is based on a comparative technical–economic assessment of three possible production scenarios: (1) the current situation, where only sugar is produced; (2) simultaneous production of sugar–anhydrous ethanol; and (3) production of sugar–ethanol and simultaneous generation of surplus electricity exported to a public grid. Some of the key assumptions underlying these analyses are as follows: Ethanol production and operation costs for a 7000 ton/day-sugar mill are estimated to be 0.25 and 0.23 USD/l, respectively. The influence of gasoline prices on sugar–ethanol production is also assessed. The kWh production and operation costs starting from sugarcane bagasse are estimated at 0.06 and 0.04 USD, respectively. Cuba's potential sugarcane cogeneration capacity is estimated to be 9006 GWh/year. Investment–profit analyses are offered for two scenarios: annexing a 300,000 l/day distillery to a sugar mill, and enlarging the cogeneration capacity of a 7000 ton/day mill. Added production cost/added-value analysis was carried out. The main environmental issues associated with sugarcane-based fuel production are also analyzed.

The Determinants of Capital Structure: Capital Market-Oriented versus Bank-Oriented Institutions

AbstractThe paper investigates how firms operating in capital market-oriented economies (the U.K. and the U.S.) and bank-oriented economies (France, Germany, and Japan) determine their capital structure. Using panel data and a two-step system-GMM procedure, the paper finds that the leverage ratio is positively affected by the tangibility of assets and the size of the firm, but declines with an increase in firm profitability, growth opportunities, and share price performance in both types of economies. The leverage ratio is also affected by the market conditions in which the firm operates. The degree and effectiveness of these determinants are dependent on the country's legal and financial traditions. The results also confirm that firms have target leverage ratioswith French firms being the fastest in adjusting their capital structure toward their target level and Japanese firms the slowest. Overall, the capital structure of a firm is heavily influenced by the economic environment and its institutions, corporate governance practices, tax systems, the borrower-lender relation, exposure to capital markets, and the level of investor protection in the country in which the firm operates.

Profile of the dentist in the oral healthcare team in countries with developed economies

This paper confines itself to the description of the profile of a general dentist while outlining where the boundary between specialist and generalist may lie. The profile must reflect the need to recognize that oral health is part of general health. The epidemiological trends and disease variation of a country should inform the profile of the dentist. A particular tension between the provision of oral healthcare in publicly funded and private services may result in dentists practicing dentistry in different ways. However, the curriculum should equip the practitioner for either scenario. A dentist should work to standards appropriate to the needs of the individual and the population within the country's legal and ethical framework. He/she should have communication skills appropriate to ascertain the patient's beliefs and values. A dentist should work within the principles of equity and diversity and have the knowledge and clinical competence for independent general practice, including knowledge of health promotion and prevention. He/she should participate in life-long learning, which should result in a reflective practitioner whose clinical skills reflect the current evidence base, scientific breakthroughs and needs of their patients. Within the 4-5 years of a dental degree it is not possible for a student to achieve proficiency in all areas of dentistry. He/she needs to have the ability to know their own limitations and to access appropriate specialist advice for their patients while taking responsibility for the oral healthcare they provide. The dentist has the role of leader of the oral health team and, in this capacity; he/she is responsible for diagnosis, treatment planning and the quality control of the oral treatment. The dental student on graduation must therefore understand the principles and techniques which enable the dentist to act in this role. He/she should have the abilities to communicate, delegate and collaborate both within the dental team and with other health professionals, to the benefit of the patient. The profile of a dentist should encompass the points raised but will also be based upon competency lists which are published by a variety of countries and organizations. It is important that these lists are dynamic so that they are able to change in light of new evidence and technologies.